hp2 wrote:

WeLoveYou wrote:

You can try to run both, but Cravers aren't drowning in influence, and you'll need some to stave off the influence bleed from the force truces you will get.

I vaguely remember that at the end of my Cravers playthrough, there was a faction quest reward that made refusing truces cost zero influence.  This was a while back, so I may just be imagining things.

-HP

Yeh that's right if you go that quest line. Compared to the other parts of the quest line though, it's a complete pain to finish. You have to kill a very strong fleet to get it. By that point I often find that I really can't afford to be sending a strong enough invasion fleet to fight it, and invade a single barren planet. But getting Insatiable Maw is excellent.

My usual solution is just to have influence buildings everywhere, and build the influence wonder. That just about gives me enough to run a lvl 4 law, and counteract force truces.

Oh wow! Thanks for the vid!

I had it in my head that slaves gave you 50% not 100% bonus. So yeh, you're right, approvacide (good word) will bring your planets back up to scratch, yet as depletion is also affecting your buildings, it's still not going to be as FIDSI productive. My comments on how to manage depletion and approval still stand I think. 

@WeLoveYou I definitely think running Cram Exam is excellent, first turn every time. The +3 science per pop translates to +7.5 per craver, and +6 per slave which often means you are producing 45+ science on the first turn.

Here's a little video of my most recent Cravers game, to give you a sense of the awesome power of depletion:

After reading @WeLoveYou's comments on depletion numbers I went and took a close look at my colony on Lacerta V, post depletion. It produces 60 industry, and the breakdown is 49.5 from pop and 11 from slaves. The base production is 5, kren is there giving +2 per pop, and we have interplanetary transport network adding a total of +4 per pop, bringing us to an industry production of +11 per pop. There are 9 pop on the planet, which is 99 industry. Divide that by two, you get 49.5 production.

There are two slaves, and production from slaves is 11 total. So that's 5.5 per slave. Each slave is producting 11/2 = 5.5 base, +100% from being a slave.

So production on a depleted planet is not tricky: they produce half of what a normal world produces. Basically, to get the normal amount of resources out of a depleted world you have to commit approvacide and just crowd the planet with slaves.

WeLoveYou wrote:

You can try to run both, but Cravers aren't drowning in influence, and you'll need some to stave off the influence bleed from the force truces you will get.

I vaguely remember that at the end of my Cravers playthrough, there was a faction quest reward that made refusing truces cost zero influence.  This was a while back, so I may just be imagining things.

-HP

Hi All,

Going to have to respectifully disagree with a lot said here, although I think @arrogantgamer is pretty much right on a lot of things, although running Toys for Boys so early is not really necessary, as the percentage bonus to dust is not really needed, the percentage bonus to science can be gained by running Cram Exam (which you can run for quite a while remaining on content - even better if you get an early minor faction war for the +15 approval), the percentage gain to food is to be avoided early (too many Cravers!), the percentage bonus to influence result is negligible, and the percentage loss to industry is painful. It's one of those laws that should be run when you've run out of other approval options.

The best way to manage your Craver population is to make sure you have at least 3 minor populations on your systems, and both use the manpower conversion to keep our Craver population to 2-3 max per planet (you can make sure it's a Craver that's converted by looking at who will grow next - it always uses the pop that's growing), and using a subpar system to dump any excess Craver population that either grew to quickly, or you can't convert because you reached manpower cap.

The 3 minor faction pop is because Cravers have double the growth of any other population, so with just one minor faction pop (your starting Haroshems for example), your Cravers will grow at a 2:1 ratio. So on a 9 population planet starting with 1 Craver and 1 Haroshem (let's say) you will end up with 6 Cravers and 2 Haroshems. With 3 minor faction pops, this ratio is now 2:3, reducing the number of Cravers you will have to convert/dump. Using the same example, you will end up with 3-4 Cravers and 5-6 minor pops, meaning you'll only have to dump 1 Craver at most.

You'll need the manpower anyway, as it's something Cravers really struggle with, especially in the early game when you want to go invading some minor populations.  In any case, make sure you are moving pop around to get those 3 minor factions populations on those systems, and keep an eye on Craver population on your planets at all times.

I think depletion is a little more serious that SuperMarioWorld makes out. Slaved minor pops give you 50% bonus (so it's really a 33% bonus to FIDSI - the maths here is weird but think of it as getting 150% overall, so the 50% is only a 33% increase), and Craver bonus only applies to non-depleted worlds, so even if your system is most non-Craver, you're still taking a significant FIDSI loss (around 20%), although not the same amount as if the system was taken by someone else.  You really, really want to avoid depletion for as long as possible/until your ready to make the final push to win, or your economy will begin to suffer.

The religious route isn't really about depletion, but about approval, and it's not really that great in that department. Forcing to content when you could have happy/ecstatic is not great. Perhaps more importantly, you won't even be able to get to that law until turn 80 on a normal speed game assuming you switched immediately. The other religious laws are not good for you - you want to declare war to get happiness (although the force law is currently bugged - fix pls for the love of The Church of The Virtual Saints), you want minor pops to grow, and the hero/ship exp is kinda meh as a law IMO. The militarist laws are all very good for you, and you're missing out on all of them. This isn't to mention the initial approval loss of representatives not being in the senate.

Alternatively, Us vs Them in the military line is incredibly good for you. +20 per homeworld means that you can stave off happiness worries in the mid game by doing what you should be doing anyway, namely conquerering others. Three homeworlds (including your own) plus a single war (including with minor factions) = 75 approval. Throw in 2 more wars with minor factions, that's 105 approval. Approval should never really be an issue until you start running out of people to fight/nearing conquest victory.

That said, I think you want to actively start depleting worlds by using Feeding Pits in the late game to get a bigger bonus to your 50 pop bonus. Multiple feeding pits in the queue will kill off minors, drastically increase your Craver pop, and give you the approval boost to switch out of Us vs Them into Deadly Intent (the final militarist law) to make the final push. You can try to run both, but Cravers aren't drowning in influence, and you'll need some to stave off the influence bleed from the force truces you will get.

Omnom1212 wrote:

In my last play through, growth only created more cravers so I couldn't even get a single planet with that makeup let alone a whole system.

If you're going the religious route, make sure that you don't have the law enacted that makes only your original population grow (I think you get a big dust bonus as a tradeoff).

-HP

To boost growth chance for minor populations, you go to the Senate screen, then click the link on the lower right panel to reach the list of populations. If you have the right luxury resource for a race you can boost them from there.

Arrogantgamer, I like the way you think.

-HP

Omnom1212 wrote:

That is definitely a cool sounding way to play.  Have you noticed any major downsides over the course of that game from switching to religious as opposed to staying the expected militarist ideology?  

Off the top of my head (since I'm on my laptop and not at my PC), you don't get the militarist cheap ship production law.  It's also a little rough for the mid-game (turn 20 through ~80) since it takes a few election cycles to actually unlock the saints & sinners law.  I left one of my systems as an experiment that ran religious propaganda nonstop and no matter how hard I tried, the population stays militarist which gives an approval penalty.  Since you don't get the happiness boosts from the militarist party, managing approval becomes an issue and it probably means that you can't expand as much as you want until the law unlocks.

-HP

Hello Everyone,

I've recently got into ES2 and had a question in regards to the cravers.  I've tried to find information regarding their depletion mechanics that is a little more up to date, specifically on how one micromanages their population, but have found most sources to be more than a few months old(And am unsure of their relevance).  That being said, are there any general guidelines on what you have found effective.  Do you actually remove all cravers from a planet eventually therefore keeping it from depleting like I've seen in some posts or do you let them deplete like in others?  Is it a mix of both?

So far it seems that trying to keep every planet from depleting by removing cravers is impossible due to happiness constraints of the minor population that then fills the system.  Complete depletion feels like the wrong way to go too as other factions continue to grow in power while yours deplete after building only a fraction of the useful buildings available.   Thank you in advance for any insights on the topic!  I look forward to your perspective!

HP's method does sound cool (whether or not Religious is used)--slowing depletion on mature systems by having one Craver pop per planet. In my first (so far only) Craver playthrough, I tried to ship most of the Cravers off of each planet as it neared depletion. Part of the challenge I faced was getting enough minor population units to replace Cravers. (Boosting the minor population to increase their birthrate can help, when the appropriate luxury resources are available).

I have a simple idea I posted to show depletion status on the F1 (systems management) screen. I think it would make managing the Craver/minor population balance easier if you could see turns to depletion at a glance from a single screen instead of having to flip back and forth between several different screens.

That is definitely a cool sounding way to play.  Have you noticed any major downsides over the course of that game from switching to religious as opposed to staying the expected militarist ideology?  

On my Craver playthrough, I planned to switch my empire over to religious at the first turn 20 election.  Three (or maybe it was four) elections later, I finally unlocked saints and sinners and went full on slave system exploitation.  I then picked some systems to be designated home systems and shipped all of my minor populations there and kept exactly one craver on each planet.  Then the cycle began:

1) Invade enemy system.

2) Ship all population units off the enemy system back to the home systems to become slaves.

3) Ship all excess craver population units off the home systems to the conquered enemy system.

4) Install a craver governor with the +8 depletion skill slotted.

5) With the massive FIDS bonus, build minimal infrastructure and crank out tons of vanilla ships.

6) Use those vanilla ships to conquer new systems.

7) As the system approaches max depletion, start shipping the cravers out to newly conquered systems.

8) Evacuate the planet so that I don't accidentally get a conquest/supremacy victory.  It also reduces the number of systems that I have to manage.

My reward was a satisfying elimination victory.  I kinda want to try it again without using saints and sinners and maintain happiness instead by massive use of feeding pits ^_^.

-HP

On that note, are the cravers ever capable of building higher tier structures?

Before late game, when you unlock new planet type present in your first systems, it's a good occasion to use this boost to build higher system improvements.

Later in the game, you can also boost the cravers with their luxury assigned, that make them produce +2 each fids. It compensate the depletion and give a fair amount of industry on populated systems ! They can get a pretty decent economy out of war. Nothing crazy, but enough to build what they want.

On a side note,  is there ever a reason to stop a planet from depleting.  For example, keeping around a powerful enemy capital that you have conquered?

I never thought about that, but i might be a good reason ! I have noticed that sometime get some planets "free" of craver power might be very worth. If there is no craver on a planet full of other population, they are not enslaved, and the planet of course, dont deplete ! 

Anyway, i dont think there are a single way to build a craver empire. They have a very interesting and sigular economy !

That makes a lot of sense.  Very much a "depends on the situation" kind of thing with depletion negatives tapering off towards the mid-late game.  It's good to see the early advantages principle carrying over from other 4x games like civ.

You are correct.  I had not noticed how significant the pre-depletion bonus was.  Your post paints a much better picture of their playstyle than most of the older ones I have read.   On that note, are the cravers ever capable of building higher tier structures?  Their playstyle suggests that you are constantly rebuilding the lower tier buildings in each new system and by the time you have completed those buildings/ships the system is near depletion.  If this is true to any extent, then I would assume the cravers focus more on a few important buildings before pumping out ships?  On a side note,  is there ever a reason to stop a planet from depleting.  For example, keeping around a powerful enemy capital that you have conquered?

If you are playing your first game as cravers, you probably didnt notice that their non-deplted planets give way more resources than other factions. Dont think about depletion as a malus, but as an insanely strong bonus before the planet is depleted, with a cost. As a craver, you cannot really save your planets from depletion, so use the depletion for its best. For instance, in early, deplete a productive industrial planet give the opportunity to build a strong fleet or/and a wonder on this planet faster than any other faction. Later in the game, it's harder to build some very precise plans around depletion, but still, depleted planets give you the opportunity to stay ahead of everybody, if you are able to never stop your conquest. When you have 50 cravers pop, your empire gain a bonus getting better every depleted planet you own. So, depletion make you even stronger.